Teardown (2022)

I expected this game to be just a sandbox about demolishing stuff.
And I don't really like games that are "too sandboxy", I prefer interesting objectives that require some creative problem solving.

Luckily turns out it's not only about demolition.
For example, in this mission you need to set up everything in the level to be able to steal 2 items and 2 cars from the map in 60 seconds. You make holes in buildings and place cars and boats to make a fastest and shortest escape route. In the process, you can use a crane car and other heavy machinery.

Here is how the escape sequence looked for me. Might not look exciting, but setting everything up for it to work was quite fun.

Decided to see what Teardown was all about. The teasers for it really impressed me from a sandbox perspective when it first released a few years ago. Ever since playing Paint The Town Red I've been sold on the idea of what voxel based games can achieve.

I really like how Teardown utilises voxels, destruction is very satisfying, things crumble in realistic ways, things even burn really well, and the smoke moves and bellows out in context to the geography around it which is something I haven't seen in a game before.

I had to destroy this boat house type structure so I drove a construction vehicle into it thinking it would do the trick. It went right through the wooden floor and into the ocean which was annoying but couldn't help think it was kinda cool that the physics made that happen. I decided to try out the blowtorch to see if the fire could take out the entire structure for me, all I had to do was sit back with my flamethrower and make sure the flames didn't get big enough to set off an alarm nearby. Apologies if anyone has any trauma associated with fire!

Watching the flames spread with the smoke hitting the ceiling and then creeping along until it could escape, and bits of the building breaking off and dropping into the water which both made a splashing sound and animation, whilst also putting out the flames, were really neat touches. The building then started to collapse at which point I realised the whole thing was on stilts and if I had just knocked out the four main posts holding the structure up I would have completed the mission in about two minutes lol. Still satisfying to watch and if you enjoy just watching physics / sandbox stuff happening in front of you then this is a really satisfying game to play!